"Oh glorious spirits, who after all your bands See the smooth face of God, without a frown, Or strict commands; Where every one is king, and hath his crown, If not upon his head, yet in his hands: "Not out of envy or maliciousness Do I forbear to crave your special aid. I would address My vows to thee most gladly, blessed Maid, And Mother of my God, in my distress: * * * * * "But now, (alas!) I dare not; for our King, Whom we do all jointly adore and praise, Bids no such thing: And where His pleasure no injunction lays, ('Tis your own case) ye never move a wing. "All worship is prerogative, and a flower Of His rich crown, from whom lies no appeal At the last hour: Therefore we dare not from His garland steal, To make a posy for inferior power." In this sense also, as in many others, the warning of St. John applies: LITTLE CHILDREN, KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS! FOOTNOTE: [81] LXX. ἀπὸ τῶν ἀκαθαρσιῶν αὐτῶν makes it possible that they read מטמאים which would represent מְטֻמֶּאִים "defiled." XIII. _JEREMIAH UNDER PERSECUTION._ JEREMIAH xx. The prophet has now to endure something more than a scornful rejection of his message. _And Pashchur ben Immer the priest_ (_he was chief officer in the house of Iahvah_) _heard Jeremiah prophesying these words. And Pashchur smote Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks, which were in the upper gate of Benjamin in the house of Iahvah._ Like the priest of Bethel, who abruptly put an end to the preaching of Amos in the royal sanctuary, Pashchur suddenly interferes, apparently before Jeremiah has finished his address to the people; and enraged at the tenour of his words, he causes him--"Jeremiah _the prophet_," as it is significantly added, to indicate the sacrilege of the act--to be beaten in the cruel Eastern manner on the soles of the feet, inflicting probably the full number of forty blows permitted by the Law (Deut.), and then leaving him, in his agony of mind and body, fast bound in "the stocks." For the remainder of that day and all night long the prophet sat there in the gate, at first exposed to the taunts and jeers of his adversaries and the rabble of their followers, and as the weary hours slowly crept on, becoming painfully cramped in his limbs by the barbarous machine which held his hands and feet near together, and bent his body double. This cruel punishment seems to have been the customary mode of dealing with such as were accounted false prophets by the authorities. It was the treatment which Hanani endured in return for his warning to king Asa (2 Chron. xvi. 10), some three centuries earlier than Jeremiah's time; and a few years later in our prophet's history, an attempt was